They’ll be passing out player cards in the Calgary Flames’ locker-room.

Not Upper Decks or O-Pee-Chees. And not the kind of collectibles you can buy with your coffee at Tim Hortons or your burger at McDonald’s.

These will come custom-made from the office of head coach Glen Gulutzan, with input from the owner of each of these one-of-a-kind items.

“They’re pretty simple,” Gulutzan said during training camp at the Saddledome, sharing the details of one of the teaching tools he has planned for his first season as bench boss for the Flames. “It’s basically an NHL card, so when you walk through those doors every day, whether it’s Bolls or Johnny or Mony, they hand in their NHL card — ‘This what I do. This is why I go in there.’

“We’ll have those meetings with the players. Really, going through that process, it’s not about me telling them what they do.

“It’s their words — what they are, what they bring to the team, what makes them successful every given night, what they have to improve on. In their words.

“Then, when we’re having skates or a guy is not in (the lineup) or it’s after practice and Mony says to me, ‘You know what? I’m not great at picking the puck up off the wall,’ or whatever it may be, at least we have that stuff.

“It’s their NHL card — here’s what I do on a nightly basis. ‘I’m great when I’m physical or I play with emotion.’ And then when a guy is not, you can say, ‘Hey, this is what you said to me that you are, and it’s not happening.’ So it’s an accountability card for me, but it’s also a guide card for the guys. It’s more for them to go, ‘OK, this is what I am and this is my role,’ and then they have to play to that.

“It’s something for us to help them and for them to help themselves.”

Most of those player/coach meetings were earlier this week.

Sunday, for some. Thanksgiving Monday, for others.

Johnny Gaudreau, with the ink barely dry on a six-year, US$40.5-million extension, is the last guy on the docket.

“We’ll make an actual little calling card, an NHL card for them,” Gulutzan said. “They can keep it, they can tape it in their stall, they can take it home, they can give it to their wife, they can throw it in the recycle …

“But we made it, I’ll have one and we’ll know where we have to go. On that card, if it says, ‘I have to work on my shot from the point’ or ‘I have to be better on breakouts,’ then we’re going to try, when we have time, to gear things toward those players. It’s just development.”

Of all the off-season developments around the Saddledome, the hire of Gulutzan — a former minor-league forward, nearly a police officer and owner of a teaching degree — will have the most significant impact on Calgary’s calling card as a 23-man unit.

The 45-year-old from Hudson Bay, Sask., is getting a second crack as an NHL head coach after missing the playoffs in both campaigns as lead whistle-blower for the Dallas Stars from 2011-13.

For the past three winters, he’s been an assistant — first to John Tortorella, then Willie Desjardins — for the Vancouver Canucks.

The man Gulutzan is replacing, Bob Hartley, seemed to squeeze every last drop out of the Flames during an improbable playoff run in the spring of 2015 but lost his job after the Saddledome-dwellers spiralled to a 35-40-7 record last winter.

The new skipper brings his own style, his own systems, his own approach both on the bench and behind the scenes.

My strengths are I’m a positive guy, I bring energy every day and I’m a good teacher.

Which begs the question, after coaching stints in Fresno (WCHL), Las Vegas (ECHL), Austin (AHL), Dallas and Vancouver, what would Gulutzan’s card say?

He doesn’t even blink before offering an honest assessment.

“My strengths are I’m a positive guy, I bring energy every day and I’m a good teacher. I asked the players in their strengths to be bold, so I’ll try to be bold with you,” Gulutzan said. “What I have to work on is I have to continue to grow myself in this role and I have to continue to make sure that I push the players to where I want them to go. We have a great group, and these athletes need to be pushed. Those are just kind of daily reminders.

“But for me, the biggest thing is just continue to grow as a coach and develop and then rely on my strengths. And one of the things I’ll remind myself is to delegate, because I’ve been an assistant before and that gave me a new perspective. So make sure I delegate responsibility and stay out of the way of guys that I trust can do a really good job.”

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